A Loving SonBy Ten
She watched from the shadows as he fired over and over again into the stumbling figure. When the now lifeless body hit the rooftop, sparks and flashes of blue lightening erupted from the quivering corpse, as Wesley Wyndham-Pryce stood in angry defiance of the father he had just killed. The horror of what he had done hadn’t yet settled onto his darkly handsome features, and for an endless moment he stood as a champion over the evil that had threatened to take the life of Winifred Berkle. The shrouded figure felt every emotion from him, anger, pain, justified vengeance, year upon year of petty criticism, decades of projected disappointment designed to shatter the confidence of the once less capable Head Boy. He was worth watching to her, worth hours of contemplation just for the pure enjoyment of tasting his airborne emotions and control. And, now that his outburst had resulted in the death of the threat to the wisp of girl at his side, he was very much in control … and remorse.
He was a murderer. And he knew it. The glow of it shone from him like the exploding corona of the sun behind the darkness of an eclipse. Whether the father figure had been real or mechanical, Wesley had killed him while convinced that the abusive man was indeed his father. He had done it without hesitation. He had done it for Fred.
Drusilla pulled her customary cloak around her, only the smoky blue of her eyes visible beneath the hood, and only then if one knew she was there and looked very, very closely. She was a black hole of lightless void on the roof. No one would notice unless she wished it. For only a moment, she thought that Angel might sense her, but he was too weak and detached from anything outside himself just now, his will still captured in the shining orb of the staff that Wesley held. She wondered how her Daddy would welcome her if he saw her, with a kiss, with a threat, or with death. Her mind wandered into the ether of the past, dragging her into memories of physical pain and mental anguish. Angelus had wielded both with expertise and delight. She had grown accustomed to it. Sometimes she even missed it. He could make her feel more alive with the tingling, prickling, tearing, ripping sensations of his cruelty.
Now, however, she wanted to feel Wesley. She wanted to touch the fevered face that broadcast contradictions of heroism and embarrassment. He had killed in passion. She knew the flavor of it would be on his mouth and in his blood. She licked her lips almost involuntarily, anticipating what joy he could bring to her in just a few touches and tastes. She held back. It wasn’t quite time yet.
***************
Wesley hung up the phone and rested his face in his hands. His office was quite dark. By accident or by choice, it was lit exactly the way he wanted it right now. He didn’t particularly want anyone from Wolfram & Hart to see his barely controlled anguish.
Drusilla lurked in the shadows of his office, undetected by either him or the elaborate alarm systems of the sophisticated organization. The old magics sometimes worked better than new technology. She was surprised at the difference in him from only a few minutes ago on the roof and all but hiding behind his desk in shame in his office now. “Cruel father,” she thought. “How could anyone not see the beauty and depth of this would be watcher turned Rogue Demon Hunter turned … champion?”
The girl had been in here. Dru could smell her, the air dripping with that annoying, sickening sweet floral scent of innocence and cluelessness. She had left with the lab boy. Foolish girl she was to leave such a delicious morsel of a man alone, particularly when he was obviously so taken with her that he had murdered his own father to save her. Foolish girl indeed.
The rise and fall of his breath seemed to heat the room, each moment a struggle to find the balance and acceptance of what he thought he had done and the relief that, though constantly at odds with his father, at least he had not actually shot him. Still in England with Wesley’s mother, even the irritation in his voice at having been awoken near dawn had not dampened the relief Wes felt. He had needed that validation, that guarantee that he had not become Oedipus incarnate.
What little action was still in the offices stopped. No sound could be heard except for the incessant pounding of Wesley’s heart and his slow, deliberate inhale and exhale. Drusilla felt the music of it and almost cooed along with it, her head dancing from side to side in an oddly soothing dance. She could feel the conflict in him begin to wane, at least the conflict regarding his father, the guilt taking a quiet backseat waiting to be revisited later. What preoccupied his mind now was the disappointment his soul harbored regarding the girl. She had left him. She knew there were serious, unspoken words between them, that Wesley had done for her what no other man had ever done … killed his own father for her. But she had gone with the other and left Wesley to nurse his guilt in quietly inflicted loneliness.
Drusilla would not let him drown in that black pit, at least not for long. She had been there for too long herself, alone on crowded streets, unnoticed by choice. Even the flavor of those she fed from was bland with their ignorance of her existence. Instead of being terrified, they had been confused. Instead of seeing her as a threat to their life, they had become hypnotized by the kaleidoscope eyes that drew them. There was no salt, no spice to their blood, only nourishment that kept her going but didn’t truly feed her.
Wesley was not like that and could never be. Though he kept every emotion, every feeling tightly capped inside him, he still felt everything. He was rarely confused, rarely hypnotized, and with the exception of the hole in his memory that only she and Angel could see through, he was confident of who he was, where he came from and what his purpose was. He felt everything with a intensity.
She had been watching him a long time now, watching him from the edges of his life since Darla had left the screaming, kicking Destroyers on the wet pavement of a dark alley. Grandmother was naughty for doing that. Daddy was naughty for changing it. From where she now stood, she could slip her hand into the non-memory of Wesley taking the baby, of his almost death, of Angel’s rejection and vendetta against him. She could feel his pain, even though Wes himself could not. She scowled at what Angel had done, the unfairness of so much done and so much learned wasted and spilled on the floor like an overturned pitcher of milk cleaned up by an unseen servant to the point no one even remembered it had been there. She wiggled her fingers in the memory knowing if she curled and twisted just a bit it would all come flooding back to him … the pain, the confusion, the guilt. He had too much guilt. Her beautiful boy virtually swam in it. She refused to add any he had been spared just so he could be enlightened as to what Angel had done.
A palpable feeling of exhaustion suddenly filled the room. Dru could taste it on her tongue, the numbing, tingling of sleep pulling at the edges of her tired, tired boy. She smiled a mixture of proud mother, eager lover, and mischievous vixen. He was resolving it all within himself, the father, the killer, the rejected lover, the unsung champion. He was so strong and so determined, and he kept it all so tightly under wraps that no one knew just how much was lurking beneath the gradually changing façade of the former bookworm.
What had been the turning point? To her, it was obvious. To others it would not be, because they did not witness it. They did not hear him reply to Gunn that his throat had been cut and all his friends abandoned him. They didn’t see how hardened he had to become when Angel tried to kill him, when he was ostracized and had to build his own demon-fighting force. Neither did they see exactly how good he was at it without any superhero powers. None of them saw his gradual transformation because none of them witnessed it, none except Angel.
With Wes’s face still buried in his hands, Drusilla moved silently toward him undetected. As she approached him, she gently stroked his hair, her mind almost touching his with her words of comfort and understanding. As Wesley lifted his head, she vanished back into the darkness, still unseen. He looked around curiously, running his own hand through his hair feeling it crackle with what must have been static electricity.
He straightened himself and his desk, then headed toward the door, pausing for a moment before he left to scan the space for another being. Sometimes when the offices of Wolfram & Hart were all but deserted, you could feel the spirits and other worldly beings scampering about the offices in search of mischief. When it was crowded and busy, they weren’t so much noticed, but late like this, Wesley always felt as if he were being watched.
Seeing nothing, he closed the door behind him and headed home.
From the shadows Drusilla emerged once again, watching the door as it latched, a smile of contentment and hope on her delicate, girlish features. With a child-like tilt to her head she planned something new for her little world, something exciting that would amuse her for a very long while if not all eternity. Her eyes lost focus ever so slightly as she saw the future, the past, and the perhaps mingled together in her mind’s eye. In all of them she saw Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. A smile graced her lips as she uttered a single, small word toward each of the Wesleys in each of dimensions and possibilities before her. “Mine.” She giggled.
Almost floating to Wesley’s desk, she settled into his chair, breathing his scent into her lungs and giving a girlish giggle as she let it back out again. Her eyes dwelled on the closed door, her imagination able to see him as he walked down the dimly lit hallways. She pulled a dolly from beneath the folds of her cloak, fussing with the delicate dress and hair while cooing in her girlish voice, “We’re going to have a new playmate, Miss Edith. Won’t that be fun?”
~Fin~